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The Under Armour HealthBox

The UA HealthBox comes in a sleek red box and includes the UA Band, UA Scale, and UA Heart Rate. Under Armour created the HealthBox with the idea of an integrated wellness tracking system. Collecting heart rate information every 30 minutes at night while detecting your sleep, counting daily steps, and updating my weight each morning helped me get an idea of my total wellness.

The UA HealthBox open for all to be seen

Under Armour Record

Under Armour has their own fitness app with a dashboard comprised of 4 wedges and a central dot. As you wear the band throughout your day and night, your dashboard updates with how many steps you have taken, how active you have been, and how much you have slept. The middle dot shows the UA logo, and reveals your weight when tapped. The top right wedge shows either how you felt you ate (Light, Medium, or Heavy) or you can have it configured to reflect your MyFitnessPal log for net calories.

Throughout the day (or when you wake up), your dashboard wedges will fill up until you’ve met your goals (steps, time active, time asleep). Your Nutrition wedge will adjust based on how you eat that day and the previous days. Underneath the wedges is a “How do you feel?” rating you set each day.

UA Record dashboard

UA Record dashboard

UA Band

The UA Band has a slim rectangular display for the time and notifications. The Band allows for switching between interfaces by swiping either left or right on the display. The “homepage” is set as the time and can’t be switched. The 24-hour clock is supported so my watch shows the time as 21:19 in bold block characters. Next to the top of the “9” is a bell icon letting me know I have an alarm set for the next morning. Next to the bell is a vertical bar and then an arrow pointing down to select different settings.

Tapping the down arrow shows a list of icons: music, settings, assorted notification or time features (like a stopwatch), and a battery. Tapping the battery shows the percentage left.

The clock face shows: notifications for events happening today and tomorrow; an alarm which can be set as active or inactive; a stopwatch; and a timer.

The settings menu shows: if the Band is connected to a phone, the adjustable brightness of the Band display, airplane mode, powering off the Band, Serial Number and Version information, and the option to reset the Band.

The music menu shows: skip song, pause or play, and increasing or decreasing the volume.

Swiping from the left to right switches from the clock to the Fitness section. Here, tapping the down arrow to the right of a vertical bar takes you to different sports icons: someone running, on a bike, lifting a barbell, and walking. Once one of the icons are tapped the interface changes the arrow from the right side pointing down to the left side pointing up, again with a vertical bar separating the menu arrow from the main interface.

I tapped the figure of someone running and it took me into the running sub-menu with the icon followed by “Run” towards the left of the interface next to the vertical bar separating the navigation arrow from the main interface. On the right side of the display is another vertical bar, but with a “Play” button to start the workout.

For the notifications, I like that I have to scroll manually instead of having the messages scroll automatically. Having a scrolling message might make the notifications easier to read on the Band since only so many characters can be shown at any given time and the whole frame moves together. A text from your friend reading “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” would take several swipes to read.

These text notifications work great for short text messages but eventually cut off the end of the message. If you aren’t prepared, you’ll end up closing the notification when the Band cuts the text short.

An annoyance I have with the notifications is that the Band has a notification informing me I had a “New Notification from Messaging”. The only use I can think of for this is if I swipe through the text notification while I’m busy and then look at my Band and am reminded I have texts waiting for me before I look at my phone.

Wearing the Band at night when you sleep is helpful to get an idea of how you sleep because the Band automatically detects when you’re sleeping, and takes a reading of your heart rate every 30 minutes. The heart rate sensor on the backside of the Band can record data during a workout if you don’t want to wear the Band.

UA Heart Rate Strap

The UA Heart Rate comes as two pieces, a strap and the monitor. The strap can be worn without the monitor (unlike the Wahoo TICKR) but would incapable of reading a heart rate.

Putting the Heart Rate on my first time was a little embarrassing because I couldn’t find the loop and hook so I slipped the Heart Rate on over my head like a sports bra. After taking the Heart Rate off I found the hook and learned UA was not trying to make our lives more difficult.

Comfort was not an issue when I wore the Heart Rate during workouts. I had my friend try out the strap (because she wears a sports bra) and did not seem to feel any discomfort from the strap.

UA Scale

I like that the scale not only weighs me and has the option to connect to multiple people (obviously only 1 person would be on the scale at once) but the scale has the option to measure my body fat percentage. To measure body fat percentage (BF%), the UA Record app first asks for permission to measure your BF% and also states there are potential risks involved if the scale measures the BF%. Each time I’ve measured my BF% I have not felt even a tickle on my feet.

Body fat % is measured directly after weight is measured. The Scale display shows “Step Up” when the Scale is ready to weigh someone, then shows the person’s weight. If BF% measuring is enabled the scale then goes into measuring BF% for the person on the scale.

I had my friend weigh herself and measure her BF% immediately following me and the scale was able to recognize who was who when we step on the scale as expected. The Quick start Guide states the scale recognizes who is weighing themselves by sheer weight. I haven’t had someone of a similar weight as me use the scale yet so I’ll be interested to see how well the scale can determine who is stepping onto the scale when two people of similar weights and BF% are connected to the scale.

After making the measurements the scale uploads the information to the UA Record and MyFitnessPal apps via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (connecting to your phone). Weighing yourself multiple times in a day may not be ideal because the most recent measurement is displayed.

Final Thoughts

The Under Armour HealthBox looks pretty and is presented in a nice way, but the quality doesn’t stop there. I like that UA did what Speedo did with their Fast Skin 3 system by making 3 pieces work together. Making the Band a slim 24/7 activity and fitness tracker that also shows notifications, a wireless scale which automatically updates the popular MyFitnessPal app, and adding in the final touch of a Heart Rate monitor makes these tools practical for fitness.